Marketing and Audience Engagement
In ODYSSEY, the marketing team extends beyond the business staff. Our entire group participates in these opportunities from events to selling subscriptions. By engaging in activites that will bring greater awareness of the desires and needs of our community, we can more effectively serve our readers.
Student focus group
Along with several fellow editors, I helped facilitate a focus group with seniors at our school in order to see what they liked most about our magazine and website. We learned that they enjoy humor writing, engaging photos, personality profiles, and they’re more likely to look at our Instagram rather than our other publications. We have made changes in our publication based on this such as featuring photos more prominently in order to better connect with our audience.
Magazine distribution
When our recent two magazine issues were published, I led a distribution team in handing out magazines to students, faculty, staff, and administrators. We received positive feedback from our community on our work, and it was very fulfilling to see students flipping through the issue.
Middle school outreach
I filmed a video for our Outreach Team to play for students at the feeder middle schools as a part of their recruitment presentations. I conveyed my duties as an Editor-in-Chief and my journey through ODYSSEY, and provided some insight into my motivation for my involvement. My purpose with this video was to put a friendly face on the ODYSSEY and establish a welcoming tone as a leader in order to foster interest in our program.
UGA football games
Our staff worked a concession stand at each University of Georgia football game before the pandemic to fundraise for our program. I took part in four games during the 2019 football season, helping to set up, assemble food and beverages and clean up. These games usually took a whole day of work and benefited our program greatly by enabling us to take part in more conferences and pay for our equipment. These games make up a core component of our budget, so when we participate, we are enabling our program to take part in more opportunities. They also make for spirited team bonding experiences.
Selling magazine subscriptions
Marketing our magazine has been chance to be an ambassador for the program and get the word out into the community about what we do. For all three of the times I sold subscriptions, I shared with potential subscribers the mission of our program, what they would get in a given magazine and the significance of their support. I exceeded the required amount of subscription attempts to maximize our sales each year, reaching out to family members, friends and other members of the community that were interested. I was awarded for selling the most subscriptions on staff multiple years.
Overseeing Print Advertisements
Over the course of the cycle, as the Print Editor-in-Chief, I help to ensure that the Business Manager has sold enough ads for the placements in the magazine. He reports to me of any updates with advertisers and I help brainstorm potential buyers. For example, I connected him with the owners of a local restaurant when we were in need of another advertiser last fall, and that ad appeared in the November issue.
Promotional booth at Lyndon House
The Lyndon House Arts Center hosted a Martin Luther King Day event that included music and community booths. News Editor Maya Cornish and I set up a table and displayed our magazines, business cards and information about our program on a slideshow. We spoke to guests about our mission and directed them to buy subscriptions. The event allowed us the opportunity to engage with community members that have never heard of our magazine before and extend our audience further into new sectors of Athens.
Participation in Issue 1 promotional video
October 25, 2019
I participated in a promotional video for our Instagram to let our school community know about the release of our magazine. By telling readers about what they can expect to see, we can increase engagement and foster more widespread interest. Seeing staff members talk is also helpful because they may know us or can connect a few stories with the personality of the writer.
Promotional Facebook posts
Our school district’s “town hall” Facebook page is a popular forum for discourse among community members and CCSD employees. I wrote a promotional posts on this page for two of my stories, each of which focused on a different issue that was discussed prominently on this platform. This helped my stories, along with the ODYSSEY brand, reach a wider audience in our community and inform many more people of the issues they care about.
Marketing lesson with an expert
Rachel Allen, the co-founder of Nabo Realty in Athens, spoke to our Production class about how to best market our magazine and program to our community. She discussed the importance of making the process easy for consumers, telling a story as we market to gain more interest and how to form a successful brand. I used this information to strengthen my pitch to potential subscribers.
